


Far From The Tree

by Colt_kun



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Amnesia, Gen, Mental Abuse, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-17 00:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1367383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colt_kun/pseuds/Colt_kun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>De-anoning from the rotg kink meme, in response to this prompt:</p><p>"Maybe I'm weird but I have extreme trouble shipping Pitch and Jack. The impression I got was more Pitch wanted Jack as a son(in the books Pitch had been a father, but lost his child)So I want a fic where Jack joins Pitch but as his adoptive son. Not to say it's a healthy Father/Son relationship. Pitch is protective and possessive and abusive in multiple way, Jack is so desperate for any affection he just deals and accepts it. "</p><p>Takes place post movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Light peeked through the cracks in the covers and shutters, waking him up from his restless sleep. He tried to ignore that it was daylight outside, that it didn’t matter because this room was kept so dark. They had gone through and covered up all the large floor to ceiling windows and boarded up the large skylight, trying to block all the light from reaching him.  
  
He rolled over, burying his face in the covers and causing the shackle around his ankle to clink. How long had they kept him in here? He was beginning to lose track of the days, of the countless visits. They came and asked questions, endless questions, trying to force and pry information out of him. Trying to get him to talk.  
  
But he hadn’t told them anything yet. He knew games when he was presented with one, though the rules of this one confused him. If he didn’t answer, they still brought food. If he did, they weren’t going to let him go. He didn’t like this game, but he’d been through harsher and more painful ones. He kept silent. Maybe, just maybe, if he held out long enough, they’d grow bored of their game and let him go. He wanted to go home.  
  
There was noise outside the door, and he saw the light around the frame go out. Someone was coming in.  
  
The door creaked open and he heard the voice ask in a low tone, “Jack? You are awake, yes?”

He didn’t move as the large man entered, trying to balance a tray with both hands as he felt his way into the dark room. He had said his name was Nicholas St. North, Pierre Noel, and Father Christmas. “You call me Santa, remember?” he had asked. Jack didn’t answer then, wondering why they were trying to confuse him and scared of what they’d do.

And he already had a father.

 “Sleep better?” North struggled to get low enough to settle on the edge of the bed. Jack drew his shackled leg away, but knew he wasn’t out of reach. The first few days the bed had been up off the ground, and every time one of them entered the room there was a struggle to get Jack out from under the bed. He liked it under the bed – it was dark, comforting. It reminded him of home. But none of the so-called guardians let him seek refuge there. They’d drag him out, kicking and screaming with a hoarse voice.

“This isn’t you, Frostbite!” The rabbit had snapped as he held Jack down, pinning his arms while the Tooth Fairy fluttered just out of reach. Jack had screamed in pain when his shoulder got roughed up, and he was immediately released. He had scrambled back under the bed and keened while they argued amidst each other in hushed voices.

Then they removed the bed frame so he couldn’t hide. And the table and chairs. The massive fireplace remained empty, no fire on the hearth behind the heavy grate. Toys were left littered around the room, but nothing hard enough that he could use as a weapon. Jack had felt closer to home under the bed. Without it, he felt utterly lost.

“Jack, did you sleep better?” North repeated, his voice patient.

Jack weighed the question carefully, before hesitantly answering in the one-word replies he allowed himself. “No.”

North nodded. “Only had to ask twice today. Better.” He slid the tray closer to Jack. “Sandy will make you a nice dream later. Help you sleep.”

Jack kicked the tray, sending the plates clattering to the floor. “No,” he pleaded, voice rasping in his throat. He didn’t like the dreams forced into his head. Dreams of clear skies and clouds of breath, laughing children and endless, endless snow. His father had told him those dreams were bad, they made him weak, and he’d have to be punished. Memories of shadows tearing at him and the explosive pain inside his head came unbidden as he curled farther into himself. “No no no…”

They had tricked him before. The Sandman was as horrible as he had been told. He had made a little dreamsand Jack, walking around with a crook in the palm of Sandman’s hand. Jack had been fascinated - it was similar to his father’s work - and tried to touch it. They knocked him out and he dreamed of things too snowbright for him to look at. Dreams of fire in his blood and one of his father’s night mares sinking teeth into his skin.

He didn’t realize he was screaming until he felt North against him, clutching him to his chest and yelling at someone to turn off ‘that blasted light’. The windows rattled with the sudden torrent of wind answering Jack, and it howled in the empty chimney.

“I didn’t think you’d leave the bloody door open!”

“Oh Jack, it’s okay, it’s okay, the light’s off now! And look, Baby Tooth came to see you! Do you remember Baby Tooth? You named her!”

Jack’s exposed skin was still searing from the light, but he blearily opened his eyes to see the little fluttering fairy in front of him. She let out little squeaks of happiness, and pranced onto Jack’s bad shoulder and into the folds of his dirty hoodie. Jack’s hand delved after her on its own accord, and she tickled his fingers before popping out with a chitter that sounded like laughter. She dove back in.

Jack looked up to see them all watching him, the Tooth Fairy with a huge smile and her hands plastered to her face. “You do remember her!” she exclaimed. “This is good!”

He faltered and withdrew his hand from the little game of find the fairy. He slid back into the corner of the bed and pulled his legs to his chest, the shackle’s chain drawing taunt.

“Jack, we try something new, yes?” North asked, patting the bed. “We ask you a question, then, you answer, and ask us a question. And we answer. Something for something. Deal?”

Jack started to shake his head no. His father said they would try to trick him again and again. That they would lie to him. That he was a very clever boy, but they would still try to confuse him.

“And-!” the Tooth Fairy zipped in to add. “And if you answer everything, then we’ll do something you want to do! Fair?”

Jack thought a moment, looking warily around the room. Just toys, the bed, the fireplace, and them. The Sandman was making symbols above his head – flickering through suggestions. The Tooth Fairy’s wings fluttered nervously. Then he nodded.


	2. Chapter 2

“Okay!” North clapped his hands together loudly. “Jack, what do you remember?”

Remember? He remembered shadowed staircases, and darkened doorways. He remembered fire in his veins, crying out in pain, and his father’s cool hands on his fevered skin that dampened the pain. He remembered games, hide and seek. He remembered being told he couldn’t go outside alone, that he wasn’t safe. He remembered disobeying.

“I remember my home.”

“Burgess, right?”

Jack shook his head, and winced when it stretched his shoulder. His hand went to hold it. “With my father.”

The sandman blew sand-steam and shook his head harshly. They still tried to confuse him, and Jack ignored it.

“Why won’t you let me go?” Jack asked. Something for something, after all.

“Because you’re hurt, Jack.” The Tooth Fairy motioned to the shoulder he was favoring. “Pitch did something to you. Don’t you remember us at all?”

“I remember your fights with my father, him telling me to run if I ever saw you.” Jack tilted his head. “That was your second question.”

North looked mildly frustrated, but nodded. The Tooth Fairy looked at the Sandman and mouthed something about Jack talking.

“Can you really fit through the chimney?” Jack asked, his voice bottoming out and scratching. He masked the wince.

Now all of the guardians each other significant looks. North’s was practically triumphant and the Tooth Fairy’s was estatic. Only the rabbit seemed wary of Jack’s sudden flood of speech.

“Of course!” North waved his hand. “Chimney is no problem. Up, down. Is easy.”

“Can’t,” Jack flicked his head towards the room’s chimney.

North scoffed, but the Sandman tugged at the large man’s sleeve. A few images popped above his head, and Jack caught the gist of the message. If he showed them his shoulder, then North would go through the chimney. He let North relay the message back as he glanced at the chimney again.

“Why?” Jack asked, despite that he felt the constant ache deep in the joint.

The Rabbit spoke for the first time, not making eye contact with Jack. “That’s where Pitch’s steed took a chunk out of ya during our last fight together, remembah?”

Jack worried at his lip, weighing his odds. His shoulder burned.

“You let us look, I show you chimney trick.” North smiled. “Something for something.”

Jack slid forward on the bed, chain clinking, and pulled the hoodie away. He heard a muffled squeak of protest within it.

“Bloody hell.”

“Sandy, is that dreamsand? Under his skin?”

Jack didn’t see the Sandman’s response. He shifted uncomfortably as something pushed forward in his mind and Jack wasn’t sure if it was dream, or memory, or some warped version of both. The rabbit yelling out numbers, something about catching up. Jack laughing – laughing, so strange it was nearly foreign – when a Nightmare seized his shoulder in its teeth.

 Work-roughed fingers grazed his skin, and Jack bolted. He pressed himself against the far wall and stared at North. “Your wound is infected, Jack,” he said gently, hands up.

“You look with your eyes,” Jack snapped.

The rabbit – the Easter Bunny, Jack remembered his titled – gave a short chuckle. “At least his personality is intact.”

"Chimney," Jack insisted. North laughed from his belly, and stood up. He moved to the fireplace, shoving aside the heavy grate with ease. Then he stepped inside, winked, and with a weird shimmer, was swallowed up the chimney.

The Tooth Fairy politely clapped along with the Sandman's enthusiastic sandpuffs. The Easter Bunny just mumbled something about North being a show-off, and North slid back down the chimney like it was merely a child's slide.

"See, is easy!" North cheerfully announced, dusting off his hands.

Jack nodded, and pretended to go to clap as well, but gave an exaggerated wince and clasped his bad shoulder. North moved immediately away from the chimney towards him, and Jack recoiled back again.

The Tooth Fairy fluttered at the foot of the bed. “We just want to help it heal, Jack,” she murmured gently. “Wouldn’t you like it to not hurt?”

Yes, he would. But they wanted that too, obviously. He watched her wings for a moment. “Something for something, right?” he looked back at the large man in red. “That’s the rule.”

“Of course! Like chimney trick. We do whatever you like if you let us heal shoulder.”

“I want to fly,” he answered. He dug his fingers between the finely padded shackle and his ankle and tugged.

Tooth’s face fell a bit. “Oh, Jack, I didn’t - we can’t…” she took a deep breath. Of course. They lied to him. Another game where the cards were stacked against him.

His father had taught him all about such games.

“Please,” he asked, trying to make his rough voice softer. “Please.” He shifted his shoulder. “I’ll let you… heal it,” he touched his upper arm, “If you let me fly first. Please.”

North’s huge eyebrows went up, and he looked to his companions.

“Bad idea mate.”

“But if we can get the sand out, then maybe I can undo whatever Pitch did to his memories-”

“Sandy, think is possible?”

Jack ducked his head into his hoodie. “We’re scaring him,” the Tooth Fairy hissed. “It’s the most he’s talked, we’re making progress. We have to _try_.”

They didn’t see the dark smirk he hid.

North released Jack’s foot. Jack’s heart sped up as he looked down at his foot, pretending to be absorbed in carefully moving it about and stretching it. The Tooth Fairy smiled at him, and held out her hands to help him stand up. “Ready Jack? Nice and gentle now-“

Jack barely heard her gasp as he broke free and darted for the still open hearth grate. The rabbit was fastest, lunging immediately and Jack felt the brush of fur against his cheek as he ducked out of the pooka’s reach. There was yelling behind him but all he could hear was the wind’s call. A misaimed dreamsand lasso burst against the bricks in front of him before he reached them himself. Then he scrambled up the chimney, the wind screaming over their yells as it caught him, the sunlight blinding, and he was gone.


End file.
